Officials to discuss water complaints in Milton area

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

LAKE MILTON — Complaints about recent sharp increases in water bills for customers in Jackson and Milton townships and Craig Beach will be addressed in a special meeting of the Milton Township trustees at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The meeting, to be held in the township hall or in the adjacent fire station, depending on crowd size, will be attended by officials of the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer’s office, which supplies the water, and Aqua Ohio, an investor-owned water company, which does the billing for the county.

The county provides water and sewer service to about 1,300 customers in the Jackson-Milton area.

Bill Coleman, the county sanitary engineer’s office manager, said his office has received hundreds of telephone inquiries and complaints from customers over the past three months concerning billing issues, which he said stem from Aqua’s switch May 1 to new corporatewide billing software.

“There have been some glitches,” in conversion from the old to new systems, he said. In addition to complaints about high bills, some customers have inquired about late bills or bills they haven’t received, he said.

Coleman urged those who think they’ve been billed for water they didn’t use to call his office, which will send someone to re-read the meter and check for water leaks, he said. Some bills are based on estimates made from a customer’s previous water-use patterns, he said.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com